Docker Swarm is a native clustering for Docker. The best part is that it exposes standard Docker API meaning that any tool that you used to communicate with Docker (Docker CLI, Docker Compose, Dokku, Krane, and so on) can work equally well with Docker Swarm. That in itself is both an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time. Being able to use familiar tools of your own choosing is great but for the same reasons we are bound by the limitations of Docker API. If the API doesn’t support something, there is no way around it through Swarm API and some clever tricks need to be performed.

Install Docker Swarm and configure cluster is easy, straightforward and flexible. All we have to do is install one of the service discovery tools and run the swarm container on all nodes. The first step to creating a swarm on your network is to pull the Docker Swarm image. Then, using Docker, you configure the swarm manager and all the nodes to run Docker Swarm.

This method requires that you:

open a TCP port on each node for communication with the swarm manager

install Docker on each node

create and manage TLS certificates to secure your swarm

How to install docker swarm and configure cluster

Install Docker on all the nodes and start with docker API. Use the following command to start it. This will be better to run from screen. I have used 3 node servers in my environment.